Invoices vs. Sales ReceiptsWhat's the Difference?

Invoices and Sales Receipts are not quite the same thing in QuickBooks. Although they both record sales information for customers, that is where their similarity ends. Here is a breakdown of what each does.

About Invoices

Estimates or Sales Orders are easily converted to Invoices with a few clicks of the mouse.

All sales, payment, and credit information for each customer is recorded in the Customer:Job list, in each customer's register.

Customers may owe the business money (also called Accounts Receivable).

When the customer pays, this information is entered as a separate step in the Receive Payments screen.

About Sales Receipts

These are a good choice when entering daily sales information, and individual customer sales information is not necessary.

Payment information is entered directly into the S.R. screen. This means that payment must be received at the time of the sale - customers may not owe your business any money to be paid at a later time.

Sales, payment, and/or credit history is not tracked for individual customers. In other words, the customer's registers in the Customer:Job list are not effected.

Because payment information is entered in the same screen, using S.R.'s is a single step.

Which to Use?4 Tips

1. Need Estimates or Sales Orders? Use Invoices.

2. Want to allow your customers to pay at a later time than the sale? Use Invoices.

3. Use Sales Receipts if you don't need to track each individual customer's sales history, and if you always receive the customer's payment at the time of the sale.

4. As a general rule, businesses that can use Sales Receipts can also use Invoices. The reverse is not necessarily true - if your business should use Invoices, it probably won't need to use Sales Receipts.